This blog will present news items about the motion picture business, with emphasis on lower budget, independent film in most cases. Some reviews or commentaries on specific films, with emphasis on significance (artistic or political) or comparison, are presented. Note: No one pays me for these reviews; they are not "endorsements"!

About Me

Since the 1990s I have been very involved with fighting the military "don't ask don't tell" policy for gays in the military, and with First Amendment issues. Best contact is 571-334-6107 (legitimate calls; messages can be left; if not picked up retry; I don't answer when driving) Three other url's: doaskdotell.com, billboushka.com johnwboushka.com Links to my URLs are provided for legitimate content and user navigation purposes only.
My legal name is "John William Boushka" or "John W. Boushka"; my parents gave me the nickname of "Bill" based on my middle name, and this is how I am generally greeted. This is also the name for my book authorship. On the Web, you can find me as both "Bill Boushka" and "John W. Boushka"; this has been the case since the late 1990s. Sometimes I can be located as "John Boushka" without the "W." That's the identity my parents dealt me in 1943!

Monday, January 12, 2015

"Alive and Well" presents the histories of 7 people at familial risk of developing Huntington's Disease

The documentary “Alive and Well” (2013), by Josh Taft, gives us
video statements of seven individuals who have had to face Huntington’s Disease
(link )

The 75-minute film is shot in wide screen anamorphic, to
emphasize that people with the risk of developing the disease are living out
their young adulthoods well, often out of doors.

The disease is genetic, and any descendent has a 50% chance
of inheriting the disease, which usually means developing of neurological
symptoms in middle age. In the worst
cases, people become totally helpless, much as with Alzheimer’s. In a few cases, it can start in childhood.

But adults born into families with the gene face the
existential dilemma of being tested and “knowing”. There is also a debate over testing the
unborn for the gene and performing abortion if positive. Some commentators, especially in the UK, have said that people who carry the gene simply must not have children. This was a more acceptable attitude in the past than now. I do recall, as a boy in the 1950's, of hearing people speak of "softening of the brain" at middle age, almost with a tone of moral disapproval; it did happen to a neighbor's father.

The individual in CA is a percussion player in the style of “Whiplash”. The person in London does bring up research
in medications that can delay symptoms of the disease in those who test positive.

But the most visually stunning scene is that
of a young woman climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, to dispose of the ashes of her
father. The final segment in South
Africa presents a man writing a dissertation on the disease in various
populations in the country, and his visiting the “townships” while apartheid
was still practiced.

The film title is actually “Alive & Well”. The link is here (Kino Lorber). The film can be watched
on Instant Play on Netflix. The film was shown in the Seattle Film Festival.

Wikipedia attribution link for animated 3D gif of
Kilimamjaro from NASA (PD) "The Snows of Kilimanjaro” (1952), with
Gregory Peck and Susan Hayward, by Henry King (Fox), was one of the first
movies I saw, in the old Buckingham Theater in Arlington VA. That was a sad film, in which a hunter slowly dies from an infection from a hunting accident.

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